LOS ANGELES--(EON: Enhanced Online News)--Philanthropists Gene P. and Mindy Stein, through the Tikun Olam
Foundation, have made a $1 million gift to establish the Stein Tikun
Olam Infant-Family Mental Health Initiative at Children’s Hospital Los
Angeles (CHLA). Funds will be used to support families struggling to
bond with their newborn during an extended hospitalization for their
child just after birth. Building on existing programmatic success, this
recent gift will permit the hospital to provide a bridge of support for
parents as their babies transition home from the Newborn and Infant
Critical Care Unit (NICCU) and into follow-up care in the High Risk
Infant Follow-up clinic (HRIF), each of which treat large numbers of
infants. It will also support additional training for staff members who
play a critical role in serving this vulnerable patient population and
their families.

“Our willingness to give
this gift now was based on the trust we have with the CHLA team, the
work they do and their ongoing training of the people they work with. We
want to continue to give them that opportunity.”

“We are incredibly grateful for this donation, which will allow our team
of infant-family mental health professionals to infuse mental health
principles into the care of the most fragile infants at CHLA – those
receiving care in the Newborn and Infant Critical Care Unit and the High
Risk Infant Follow-up clinic,” says Marian E. Williams, PhD, inaugural
director for the Stein Tikun Olam Infant-Family Mental Health Initiative.

“The terms mental health and mental illness sometimes have a stigma in
our culture, and most people don’t realize that mental health in infants
and children is a real public health issue,” says Gene Stein. “The
experiences that children have in the early months and years of life
make an enormous impact on a child’s brain development and future
success.”

“Our goal is to educate parents that their child’s social and emotional
development determines their mental health, which is as important as
their physical development,” says Mindy Stein. “Our willingness to give
this gift now was based on the trust we have with the CHLA team, the
work they do and their ongoing training of the people they work with. We
want to continue to give them that opportunity.”

“The Steins’ generous gift builds on their seven years of extraordinary
support for early childhood mental health training and services at
CHLA,” says Bradley O. Hudson, PsyD, ABPP, clinical psychologist and
director of Community Mental Health at the USC University Center for
Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD), a partnership with the
Division of General Pediatrics at CHLA.

“The added support from our partnership with the Stein family not only
ensures that our very young children will better heal, but that they and
their families will thrive following the trauma of a hospital
experience,” says Marie Kanne Poulsen PhD, Chief Psychologist for the
USC UCEDD at CHLA.

Inspired by studies that have shown that early intervention is critical
in lowering the risk for mental health disorders, substance abuse,
mental and physical abuse and violence later in life, the Stein Tikun
Olam Infant-Family Mental Health Initiative aims to provide direct
services to more than 100 infants annually, with the majority of those
being patients who have severe medical conditions requiring inpatient
treatment in the NICCU and outpatient care in the High-Risk Infant
Follow-Up (HRIF) clinic.

The Steins’ gift will support four psychologists and two home visiting
therapists in caring for families with infants served by CHLA. This gift
will also support training on infant-family mental health and
trauma-informed care for medical professionals. Families often
experience psychosocial stressors, trauma and postpartum depression
during an extended hospitalization for an infant born with a serious
medical condition and these challenges often continue after discharge
from the hospital. CHLA’s infant-family mental health services help
families to develop a strong and growth-promoting attachment with their
newborn despite these challenges.

Recently, one of CHLA’s infant-family mental health psychologists worked
with a young woman whose baby had a complex medical condition and
associated developmental delays. A NICCU social worker recognized the
stress being experienced by the single mother along with her difficulty
in forming an attachment with her son. An infant-family psychologist
found that the mother felt disconnected and overwhelmed trying to
understand her baby’s medical issues. The mother expressed her
difficulty feeling a bond with her baby, and her worry that she would
not be able to meet his needs.

Initial treatment began by supporting the mother’s sense of confidence
in her existing capacity to read and respond to the baby’s cues, her
knowledge of his medical needs, and her ability to manage his medical
care. With the support of the psychologist, the mother began to take a
more active role in caring for her baby and learned to recognize how her
baby responded to her. As the mother began to feel more connected to her
child, the psychologist encouraged her to hold the baby and observe how
her touch helped him to feel calm and safe.

“After the baby was discharged home from the hospital, the psychologist
provided follow-up home visits as well as support by phone,” Williams
explains. “The psychologist was also present for follow-up visits to the
HRIF clinic, helping the mother transition to working with the clinic’s
staff for guidance and support. The targets of intervention varied from
addressing the stress of parenting to her continued sense of competence
with new developmental changes, as well as accessing resources for her
baby. But ultimately, the goal remained that of reducing stress to
support the parent-child relationship and baby’s optimal development.”

Mindy Stein is a community leader and noted philanthropist who began her
career as a speech therapist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in 1976.
She is a member of the Board of Directors of Children’s Bureau where she
served as Chair from 2010 to 2013. Gene Stein serves as vice chairman
and a director of Capital Strategy Research, a unit of the Capital Group
Companies, a global investment management company. He is also senior
vice president of Capital World Investors, and a director of Capital
Research and Management Company. Active in the community, Gene is a
Trustee of the Jewish Community Foundation and also a Board member of
Pitzer College and the Los Angeles Opera. The Steins are longstanding
supporters of CHLA and are members of the Children’s Fund 100. Both are
members of the Board of Directors of ZERO TO THREE: National Center for
Infants, Toddlers and Families. In 2001, the Steins founded the Tikun
Olam Foundation, a support foundation at the Jewish Community Foundation
of Los Angeles. Tikun Olam is Hebrew for “healing the world,” and the
mission of the foundation is to help vulnerable children by providing
support to both the child and family, with a primary focus on promoting
early childhood mental health and the prevention of child abuse for
young children up to five years of age.

About Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is a not-for-profit pediatric health
care organization dedicated to creating hope and building healthier
futures for children. Honored as the premier children’s hospital in
California and among the top five in the nation, we treat 107,000
children annually from Los Angeles and around the world. As a pediatric
charity of choice, the hospital relies on the generosity of the
community to support its groundbreaking pediatric research and the
complex care it provides for critically ill and injured children.

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